CHC 1979-01-16 - Laserfiche WebLink

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MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes, I have no quarrel with that. As far as the appointment of commissions, I have no say. It' s up to the executive branch, the administration, and for the Council to appoint and the confirmation thereof. As far as the Liquor Commission body, seven, well, primarily they represent the major districts. I think it' s a good idea for the commission to be represented by major districts -- Kona, Kohala, Ka'u. And, as I say, the number differs. On the commission you have seven members. On the adjudicatory board you have five members. As a judicial body, I think the number five is a good number. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Mr. Kuniyoshi, you said thought° you are grandfathered in so that after your tenure, the Liquor Commission will appoint a director. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Correct. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Not the Mayor then? Is this true on the other islands? MR. KUNIYOSHI: No. You see on the other islands, for example, the executive heads of the Honolulu Liquor Commission and the Kauai Liquor Commission, my counterparts, are under civil service. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Honolulu and---? MR. KUNIYOSHI: And Kauai, they are civil service. MRS. KOBAYASHI: Just like you. MR. KUNIYOSHI: Yes, except I'm grandfathered. In the case of Maui, I' ll give you a good example. The person who retired was under a similar situation. Even the Maui County grandfathered because the prior head was a civil service employee, just like I am. Recently that person retired. So the present director of the Department of Liquor Control on Maui is still an appointed person, did not come through the civilservice rules and regulations. So the present head of the Maui Liquor Control is not civil service employee. In other words, he can be removed by the Liquor Commission. Well, for good cause. The only problem with this, now that you've mentioned it, in a sense it doesn' t make sense because the commission appoints the director and on the day-to-day operatibns this person is under the control of the Mayor. There may be conflict. It appears that once in awhile I am accountable to three bodies. One, to the commission to pro- vide the services , the other is to the Liquor Control Board. In fact, four. The other is to the Mayor under my general supervision, and I'm accountable also to my staff. So at times when the four different bodieshave conflicting ideas of what should be done, then I'm faced with the problem of trying to make a decision based upon input from four different bodies. And this sometimes entails a lot of problems. My concern is this idea of the commission appointing. After that, the commission has no say because after all, 99 percent of the time, I 'm under the general supervision of the Mayor. So assuming - 5 -